CARBON BUDGET OF THE PETROCHEMICAL INDUSTRIES IN THAILAND
3.1 SOURCE AND NATURE OF DATA
3.1.2 Confidentiality of data:
The data must be treated confidentially in order to avoid the release of proprietary and sensitive data from any one company or industry. Data of individual product and/or data of individual company must not be shown in the report. Only the aggregated data of the industries can be reported.
3.2 CARBON BUDGET OF THE PETROCHEMICAL INDUSTRIES IN THAILAND
The carbon budget was developed from the data of the upstream, intermediate and downstream petrochemical industries and the plastics and derivative industry. Effort was made to collect data of many products as possible. The products of which their data were obtained for this study together with their production capacity in the percentage of the national capacity and the level of data completeness are listed in Table 3.2.
Table 3.2 List of products used in the development of carbon budget for Thai
10. Purified terephthalic acid (PTA) 100 2B
11. Styrene monomer (SM) 100 3A
12. Tri-ethylene glycol (TEG) 100 2A
Table 3.2 List of products used in the development of carbon budget for Thai
1. Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) 100 2B
2. Advance Superabsorbent Monomer NR 5A
3. Butyl methacrylate (BMA) 100 5A
4. Polybutadiene rubber (BR) 100 2B
5. Compound plastic NR 2A
6. Dioctyl phthalate (DOP) NR 2A
7. High density polyethylene (HDPE) 100 2B
8. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) 100 2B
9. Liquid epoxy NR 2A
10. Linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) 100 3A
11. Melamine NR 2A
12. Methyl methacrylate (MMA) 100 5A
13. Multifunctional epoxy resin NR 2A
14. Nylon 6 NR 1A
15. Polycarbonate (PC) 100 2A
16. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) NR 3A
17. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) -Bottle grade NR 1A
18. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) -Fibre NR 4B
19. Polyacetal 100 5A
27. Vinyl cis polybutadiene rubber (VCR) NR 2A
Table 3.2 List of products used in the development of carbon budget for Thai
Plastic and other derivatives industry
1. Blown film for producing packaging bag NR 2A
2. Draw textured yarn NR 3A
3. Nitrile latex NR 2A
4. Partially-oriented yarn NR 3A
5. Plastic resin for pipe NR 2A
Note. NR means national production capacity was not reported.
The total carbon budget of the petrochemical industries in Thailand for the year 2008 was 10,966 ktonnes CO2eq (±10%) and their emission intensity was 0.6346 ktonnes CO2eq per ktonne of production (±10%). Average emission intensity of each industrial phase is shown in Table 3.3.
Production share and emission share of each industrial phase are shown in Figure 3.1 and Figure 3.2 respectively. Due to confidentiality concern, emission intensity of each product could not be displayed in this report.
Table 3.3 Average emission intensity of each industrial phase
Industrial phase Average Emission Intensity (ktonnes CO2eq / ktonnesproduction)
Upstream petrochemical 0.8783 ± 0.0873
Intermediate petrochemical 0.5739 ± 0.0547
Downstream petrochemical 0.4195 ± 0.0014
Plastics and other derivatives 0.3698 ± 0.0000
Figure 3.1 Production share of each industrial phase, 2008
Figure 3.2 Carbon emissions by industrial phase, 2008
The upstream petrochemical industry emitted the largest share of carbon emission with about 53% of the total followed by the intermediate and downstream petrochemical industries, which had the same emission share of 23%. The plastics and other derivative industry had only 1 % of emissions share. There were two factors that control this outcome: production capacity and emission intensity. The higher production capacity and the higher the emission intensity then the higher the resulting emissions. For the intermediate petrochemical industry, although the production share was less than that of the downstream petrochemical industry, but as their
Upstream
average emission intensity were higher than that of the downstream petrochemical industry, the emission shares of these two industries were finally equal.
When particular products were considered (Table 3.4), the top five emissions contributors were ethylene, PTA, propylene, p-xylene, and HDPE, which altogether constituted more than 60 % of the total emission. Their emissions dominated by their productions which constituted about 50 % of the total production. Their emission intensity, however, ranked at 11th, 26th, 10th, 13th, and 16th respectively. Five products with the highest emission intensity were MMA, BMA, advanced superabsorbent monomer, BR, and VCR, however, due to their small production share (<1.5%) their emissions share amounted to only about 5 % of total emissions.
Table 3.4 Production and emission contribution of each product
Product Number Overall Within the Same
Industrial Phase
5. Mono-ethylene glycol (MEG)
1 1.2621% 0.8989% 3.9944%
6. Phenol 1 0.0031% 0.0022% 0.0099%
7. Phthalic anhydride (PA) 1 0.0055% 0.0040% 0.0176%
Table 3.4 Production and emission contribution of each product (cont.) Overall Within the Same
Industrial Phase Intermediate petrochemical industry (cont.)
8. Poly-ethylene glycol (PEG) 1 1.1573% 1.1954% 5.3122%
9. Polyols 2 0.2893% 0.1373% 0.6103%
10. Styrene monomer (SM) 2 2.0784% 1.0500% 4.6659%
11. Purified terephthalic acid (PTA)
3 15.5082% 11.5618% 50.4992%
12. Tri-ethylene glycol (TEG) 1 2.7376% 5.1057% 22.6891%
Downstream petrochemical industry 1. Acrylonitrile butadiene
styrene (ABS)
1 1.1573% 0.0032% 0.0141%
2. Advance Superabsorbent Monomer
7. High density polyethylene (HDPE)
6 6.8050% 8.4876% 37.0420%
8. Low density polyethylene (LDPE)
2 1.4929% 1.7480% 7.6287%
9. Liquid epoxy 1 0.1871% 0.0018% 0.0080%
10. Linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE)
2 2.1283% 0.2086% 0.9104%
11. Melamine 1 0.0556% 0.0580% 0.2531%
12. Methyl methacrylate (MMA) 1 0.5492% 2.8387% 12.3887%
13. Multifunctional epoxy resin 1 0.0060% 0.0001% 0.0003%
14. Nylon 6 2 0.6365% 0.0114% 0.0500%
15. Polycarbonate (PC) 2 2.3725% 3.0807% 13.4451%
16. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET)
1 0.7604% 0.0002% 0.0011%
Table 3.4 Production and emission contribution of each product (cont.) Overall Within the Same
Industrial Phase Downstream petrochemical industry (cont.)
17. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) -Bottle grade
4 1.8250% 1.0909% 4.7612%
18. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) –Fibre
27. Vinyl cis polybutadiene rubber (VCR)
1 0.1881% 0.7104% 3.1004%
Plastic and other derivatives industry 1. Blown film for producing
packaging bag
The carbon budget was also disaggregated for the energy sector and industrial process as shown in Figure 3.3. The definition of the energy sector and the industrial process are given in Box 3.1.
Box 3.1
Definition of energy sector and industrial process
Emissions from energy sector involves emissions from the generation of both onsite and procured utilities
Emissions from industrial process involves emissions from industrial processing, emissions from fuel used in the process, process vent, and flared emissions.
Figure 3.3 Emissions share of energy sector and industrial process
Figure 3.3 suggested that emissions associated with consumed utilities were higher than emissions caused by industrial processing. Thus, if the petrochemical industries need to mitigate their emissions, it could be achieved by increasing the energy efficiency at their onsite utility generation and/or seeking for alternative utility suppliers with higher energy efficiency production.
In view of direct and indirect emissions of which the definition was given in Box 2.1 of Chapter 2, the direct emissions of the petrochemical industries were higher than the indirect emissions (Figure 3.4). This was sensible as most of major plants which dominated the production share had their own onsite utility generation units. Emissions at their plants, which included emissions from the generation of utilities and the industrial processing, was therefore higher than the
Industrial process 43%
Energy sector 57%
indirect emissions which mostly involved procured utilities only. Taking into account the result of energy and industrial sector analysis, if the petrochemical industries would like to reduce their emissions, emissions associated with the onsite utility generation could be the place to start.
Figure 3.4 Direct and indirect emissions of Thai petrochemical industries
From the uncertainty analysis, there were 4 products considered as major sources of error of the total carbon budget: p-xylene, mixed C4, polystyrene (PS) and purified terephthalic acid (PTA).
Table 3.5 shows error of these products and their emission contribution.
Table 3.5 Major sources of error
Product Error Emission Contribution
P-xylene 69% 8.93%
Mixed C4 23% 2.23%
Polystyrene (PS) 20% 0.34%
Purified terephthalic acid (PTA) 18% 11.56%
The error was mainly due to the incompleteness of the obtained data. In order to improve an accuracy of the total carbon budget in the future, it was advised to acquire higher quality data of these 4 products. However, should there be constraint concerning acquiring data e.g. resource limitation, it was suggested to prioritise the improvement by considering emission share of each product. From Table 3.5, p-xylene and PTA had emission share of 8.93% and 11.56%
Direct Emission
63%
Indirect Emission
37%
budget. On the other hand, mixed C4 and PTA had only 2.23% and 0.34% emission share respectively. A change in their data would not make an obvious change in the total carbon budget. Therefore, acquiring data of p-xylene and PTA would take priority over acquiring data of mixed C4 and PS.
3.3 COMPARISON OF THE CARBON BUDGET OF THE PETROCHEMICAL